This is the Truth Network. My friend, what is it that is an act of obedience to God's Word? It puts us in the will of God and humbles us. It's one of King David's ways. It ensures answers to prayer and it sets us apart from unthankful Christians.
Well, stay with us, listen, and learn. You're listening to Until He Comes, a blend of prophetic and practical biblical studies with Dr. Greg Hinnant, author of The Second Coming of Christ, His Appearing, His Return, Our Preparation. And now, author and teacher Greg Hinnant. Welcome to the broadcast, my friend.
I want to begin today's talk by explaining that we're not going to discuss the topic that I announced in the previous episode, which was Old Testament end times prophecy. I was planning to talk to you about the course that I've just finished on that very important topic. But today, I feel like it's more timely for us to talk about the importance of giving thanks to God.
Now I'm not doing this because it happens to be our Thanksgiving season. No, I'm doing it because I feel like the Holy Spirit is leading me to this topic today because. You need it.
Now, our text today is 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 18. Here, the Apostle Paul is giving us one of the great secrets of his overcoming life. Listen to what he says. In everything, give thanks. for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus, concerning U Let's look at this for just a moment and break it down word by word.
Paul said in everything, give thanks. That is, while you're still in the situation which may be adverse, something you don't like, something which seems like it's against you. While you're in that situation, give God thanks. You know, sometimes we say, Well, Lord, I'm going to get through this situation, then I'm going to. Give you things, or then I'm going to give an offering, or then I'm going to do what you told me to do, just get me out first.
But Paul says no, while you're still in the adversity, right now, start giving him thanks.
Now you may be in trouble right now. You may have something that has just freshly visited your life, and this may be very timely for you as you listen.
So in the situation, give thanks. Don't wait until it's over. And then he says in every situation.
Now that word every is all inclusive. There is nothing that is not included by this term. Everything.
So Paul says, I don't care what the situation is, good, bad, or indifferent, it may be the worst situation of your life. By far, It may seem like utter failure, collapse, irreversible catastrophe. but in it start giving him thanks.
So there's nothing that is excluded.
Now, everything means in every victory and every loss. In every game? And every defeat It means when things go your way, when nothing goes your way, It means when you're popular and everybody likes you, and it means when suddenly people have turned against you on the left and on the right, and you can hardly find a friend. in everything. Do what?
Give Thanks.
Now, this is a very simple act. is simply opening your mouth and saying thank you, Lord. Or just saying thank you when you're privately talking to the Lord. You can do this. Mentally, yes.
but I think it's preferable to do so audibly, obviously, where you can.
So, in every situation, Paul said, give thanks.
Now, notice that word, give. give means it is an act It is a sacrifice. It is an act of giving up something. The thing you're giving up. is your right to complain.
As a Christian, you're going to have to give up that right to complain. Because you're never going to make it. you'll always find something to complain about and that'll pull you down. It'll pull you down not only in times of adversity, but in times of prosperity, when everything's going your way. You'll be complaining about things, and it'll pull down your spirit, and it'll ultimately ruin your life.
So in everything, give thanks is Paul's. Command and it is inspired, and it happens to be right in the middle of a section which ends by Paul saying that. Faithful is he who calls you who also will do it. And what is that? He's saying, The very God of peace sanctify you holy.
I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to live a sanctified life, and be ready for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way to do it. Is it everything? No, it's not.
But it is fundamental and essential, and it is Pauline.
Sometimes we want to preach and teach and study Pauline doctrine, and of course, that's wonderful. Here, we're gleaning something from Pauline experience. This is the way, Paul. could go through situations like those we read, for instance, in Acts sixteen. when he was in the Philippine jail.
He was brutally mistreated. His rights as a Roman citizen were stripped. And yet he in Salas of praising God and praying. at the midnight hour, with their backs ripped open, probably in excruciating pain, in a filthy, stinking dungeon filled with human feces and just smelled terrible. And there he was praising God because he had formed a habit of Thanksgiving.
And that's why he's saying to you and me in this text, in everything you think. She's saying, I don't care what's happened, Start your path to overcoming by giving God. Thanks. Give up that right. to complain.
If you're going to be an overcomer, You have to give it up. Then you can rise above the situation. Then you can hear God's wisdom. Then you can hear that still small voice.
Now, the rest of the verse, after telling us what to do, tells us why we should do it in everything you think for. meaning because, or this is the reason you should take this action. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
So he's telling you that when you're giving thanks, You are in the will of God. It is God's will that the Christian. Be thankful. It is God's will. that whatever has happened in your life has come into your life.
Nothing can touch your life. except it comes By God's permission. And if it comes by his permission, it comes For some good purpose, how do we know that? Because again, Paul wrote in Romans 8:28, by inspiration. We know God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him.
Now again, we don't know what he's up to at the time, No, we have to take this by faith. But we do know from this very text, Romans 8.28, that God is up to something good.
Now the next verse tells us what that good is. Romans 8:29 says, For whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate. to be conformed to the image of his Son.
So the first good That God is working to create in your life through this circumstance you're in right now, as you're listening to me, is He's conforming you to the image of His Son, and He will do it. The Holy Spirit has the ability. a plenty to do it. Yeah. You remain submissive and obedient and trusting.
You must cooperate if you are to be conformed. And if you will, start giving thanks, The conforming process is already underway. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
So the word this has a dual application. Thanksgiving is the will of God, and the situation, this, every situation, every circumstance that He spoke about in the first part of the verse. This is His will. You mean You say to yourself, You can't mean that. This is unfair.
This person cheated me. This person has injured me. They have wronged me. They've stolen from me.
Well, yes, I do mean that. That's exactly what Paul meant. Everything.
means everything. It's all inclusive. Nothing. escapes its Perview.
So again, this is a test to our Willingness to trust God when we don't have a clue what He's up to. But in this case, he has told us that when you're giving thanks, that's the will of God. And the situation that has touched your life. Every situation, every circumstance is in some way God's will. And if you will begin by giving thanks at this very moment.
The Lord will immediately give you peace because you're obedient. And he will lead you sooner or later into a clear understanding of what he's doing generally in your life.
So Obedience Is important to God, most important. It's how we get conformed to the image of His Son. And this is a clear Instruction from the great Apostle Paul, who lived the most overcoming life. You and I have ever known. or read about.
And he's telling us One of his great secrets. In every situation in Paul's life, He met it with thanksgiving when he did not understand what God was doing. Because he understood that that situation was the will of God. In some way, that situation was going to conform him to Jesus' image. And also, in some way, it was going to ultimately Do good for him for Paul.
That is the second meaning of the word good. in Romans 8.29. The first good He works is conforming us to Christ's image. The second is our human good. God wants to do good to us from the human perspective as well.
That doesn't come first. Conformity to Christ's image comes first. But then God in His love, His fatherly love, also wants to bless us. We say that in the life of Joseph. Everything seemed to be working against Joseph, and it was.
But behind it all, through his brother's betrayal, his period of slavery. His rise as a servant of Potiphar, and then his sudden fall by false accusation. His Long months. in Potterford's prison, All of that was working for good. Bringing him into the place where he was served God, with the greatest fruitfulness.
and be used of God to save his family, To really save the whole planet of redemption, because if Joseph had not obeyed God, Jacob's family would have perished in the famine, and the Redeemer could not have come.
So At this moment, you may not realize the importance of your obedience to God, but let me encourage you to believe that your obedience is important.
So begin today by giving him thanks in every situation you are in.
Now I want to remind you, this is a command and not a suggestion. It is in the imperative mood. The subject is you. In everything, you should give thanks. You must give thanks.
And it's a test of whether or not we're going to be a hearer of the word only or a doer of the word. It's determining whether we're going to build a house of our character on the shifting sands of. Self-will. or the solid rock. of the will of God.
So whatever's going on in your life today, please, open your mouth and start quietly thanking the Lord. And if you're alone and you're by yourself and you can do so, just start thanking him out loud. Strongly. enthusiastically And praise him. He loves to be praised.
This is an expression of your faith in what Paul is saying here: that somehow. This situation that has visited your life is the will of God for you and is going to work good for you. If not sooner, later. And in the meantime, God is using it to work in you beautiful submission to his will Trust Abandonment to God in trust. you completely fling yourselves into the arm of God, Any cash issue?
You say with Job, Though he slay me, yet Abel trushed him. You say with Habakkuk, though the whole land be stripped bare, yet I will rejoice. In the God of my salvation, that is, when I can't rejoice in the salvation of my God. I'll rejoice in the God. of my salvation.
This month, for a gift of any amount, we're offering Philippian Notes, Dr. Hinnant's commentary on Philippians. Easy to understand, insightful, biblically precise, and spiritually rich, and will prove very helpful to ministers, teachers, and any hungry believer. It could change your life. For a gift of $60 or more, we'll send you the complete four-volume Hinnant End Times Prophecy Collection, the Second Coming of Christ, the Tribulation Story, Revelation Notes, a verse-by-verse commentary on Revelation, and the Day of the Lord commentary, which interprets all Old Testament prophecies and foreshadowings of the end times.
You may give your gift today by visiting the donation page at greghinnantministries.org or sending your checks to GregHinnant Ministries P-O-B. 788 High Point, North Carolina, 27260, or by calling 336-882-1645. And if you are a Logos Bible Software user, you may purchase The Second Coming of Christ, The Day of the Lord Commentary, and Revelation Notes from the Logos Online Bookstore.
Now, again, Dr. Hinnant. This is strong stuff. This is deep stuff. This is stuff we need.
So, thanksgiving is an act of obedience to God's word. This is where we begin today. Also, it puts us in the will of God. As we just said, Paul said, In everything give thanks, this is the will of God.
So, whatever you're going through today, you know, we often slide out on the will of God. We get into a situation we had no business getting into. Or we do something else or permit something, Or failed to do something, failed to take an initiative. And we're really outside of the perfect will of God. You may be there now.
And you may be thinking, oh my goodness, I've created a mess. How am I going to get back into the center of his will?
Well, I'll tell you the way you're going to start it. You're going to start it by opening that mouth and saying, thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. While you still don't have a clue, how he's going to unravel that situation.
And while you're thanking him and blessing him, the peace of God is going to settle in on you. I can tell you that. And it won't be long if you'll continue to remain submissive and obedience, where you'll know exactly the path of deliverance from that mess that you created for yourself. Or perhaps someone else has brought upon your life.
Sometimes we suffer because our loved ones or others that. That we live or work with disobey God, and they create a mess that's so big it envelops them and us and other people.
So Thanksgiving puts you immediately in The will of God, even if you are circumstantially out of it at the moment.
So start thanking Him, and He will lead you back into full obedience. What we would call the divine order for your life. Thanksgiving also Humbles us. It humbles us. In Philippians two eight, the Bible says that Jesus humbled himself and became obedient.
He humbled himself and became obedient. That is such an instructive phrase, because Jesus humbled himself by his and this is, of course, as a man, as God, he did not need to humble himself, but as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient. And his obedience, Paul tells us in that text, went even unto death and even to the shameful, ignominious, humiliating, terrible Death of a Roman cross. Why did he do that? Because he had to die to be the Redeemer.
You and I could not be Christians today. We could not have a new birth had Jesus not Died on that cross.
So he obeyed the Father as far as he could, all the way to death. And even the death of the cross.
Now, this phrase, he humbled himself and became obedient. I want to expand that a little bit in your mind. Jesus humbled himself. as she became obedient. by becoming obedient.
He humbled himself as far as he was obedient. In other words, had he stopped short, In obedience. He would have also stopped short. in humility training. Hm, think about that for a moment.
You may be in God's humility process right now while you're listening to me. It's not fun. It doesn't feel good, does it? No, but you need humility training, and I need humility training, and God's going to give it to us whether we believe we need it or not.
So let's be wise and accept it and grow from this situation. Let God humble you in your test and go all the way He asks you. To go. Set yourself and your pride aside. Remember, when we enter the portals of heaven, pride will not go with us.
Originally, God cast out Lucifer from his presence, and one-third of the angels who sided with Luther in his prideful, envious rebellion against God. And he's not taking anyone into heaven who has the pride of Lucifer in his heart. If we even have a whiff of pride, we're going to be disqualified. You know, the disciples were talking among themselves who should be the greatest among them, forgetful, of course, that the greatest one was right there with them. Jesus overheard the conversation.
He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, okay, boys, sit down here and look at this little child. You see this little child? He doesn't have this prideful ambition, this worldly pride about him. He's just a little child. He said, unless you are converted.
And this is in Matthew 18, the opening verses. And become as this little child. You won't even. Enter Happen. Hmm.
So humility is vitally important. to the believer. Is it important to you? Today, change your viewpoint about humility training. I think it's fair to say that one Way that we measure our spiritual growth is by how humble we are.
not how humble we think we are. But how humble we actually are. And you know, humility is a sober self-view. You see yourself as you actually are. You don't have to see yourself in a higher position with greater fame or greater fame.
Greater favor. No, you see yourself as you are, unvarnished, without your makeup on. That's the way God sees us. And then you see God high and lifted up, as Isaiah said, He saw him in Isaiah 6. He said, I saw the Lord, and he was high and lifted up.
Oh my goodness What a sight And in that moment Isaiah realized how sinful he was. And he said, Woe is me.
So he saw God high and lifted up. And when we're humble, of a humble attitude. We see God exactly as He is, and He is Awesome and exalted. And then we also see other people That they are just like us. They could be the President of the United States, the Prime Minister of England, The some potentate?
or lord or lady, But they're just like you and me. They're a child of Adam with a fallen nature. If saved, they receive the nature of Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit? But we are all amazingly similar.
In our nature And in our Human capabilities.
So humility sees oneself humbly. unvarnished, without our makeup on. without self-aggrandizement. And it sees God is high and lifted up. and worships him and humility sees others on the same part that we all are on.
This human level.
So Obedience of any kind will humble us, and giving thanks to God in all circumstances certainly will humble us.
Now, thanksgiving also is one of King David's ways. Psalm 34, verse 1, is one of. David's Psalms. And there he said, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be.
In my mouth. Hmm, think about that. I will bless the Lord at all times. His price shall continually B In my mouth. This tells me that David formed a habit of thanksgiving and praise.
It wasn't a random act, it was a regular act. And no habit is formed unintentionally. Every habit you have formed, my friend, in your life, you intended. To form it, you worked at it. And the way we form a habit is that we Make a new start.
and we continue to restart that habit Until it becomes a habit until that action has become habitual. It's regular. You know, I see this in the life of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 6, verse 10, the Bible says that Daniel prayed on that occasion as he had before. and gave thanks before his God three times.
A day. This is where the Jewish custom of praying morning, noon and evening. comes from And it's also mentioned in the Psalms So Daniel and David were habitually thankful.
Well, this may be one of the big reasons why they were. such men of God. Again, we just said that Paul has shared this secret with us from his own experience. Paul wrote, In everything if thanks is the will of God. And we know he obeyed that instruction himself.
He practiced what he preached. Here we see with David, another great worshiper A man whom God said was after his own heart. He said, I will bless the Lord at all times when things are going my way and when things are going. Against me. And he said, His praise shall continually be.
Now, note this. in my mouth. That's not silent praise. That's audible price.
So David got his harp out and began to pray. You say, I don't have a harp, Dr. Hennett, I can't praise the Lord. You have a piano, you play on the piano, but I can't.
Well, let me tell you, you've got a heart built right into your body. Your vocal cords. And when you sing those chords, are praising God.
So begin to sing to him today, wherever you are, and worship him as David did, continually. as Daniel did three times a day. Whatever the situation, you begin to thank him and praise him. This will have a dynamic effect on your ability to communicate with God. God is always trying to get in touch with us, but sadly, we're not answering the phone.
We're not receiving the text, we're not getting the email. Why? Because of an ungrateful nature. But when we begin to thank God Suddenly Our communication system is wide open to heaven. And when you read that Bible, Insights leap out.
That were in the text all along, but you couldn't read them, you couldn't see them because. ye were grumbling. And we do begin to sing and praise and worship God now. Oh, it's different It's different. the presence of God.
settles in on you.
Now, you know God is present because Christ said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. We know that. We know God is omnipresent. That's absolutely theologically correct. But, my friend, The Lord wants you to have an experiential Knowledge of Him.
And He wants you to know whether you're worshiping Him alone in your home. In your car as you're traveling down the highway. Or in church surrounded by hundreds of believers, he wants you to have a personal. Experience and witness of his presence. David said, in his presence.
Is fullness of joy. And he didn't learn that in seminary. He learned that in his own experience. As he said, Uh Giving thanks to the Lord at all times and continually praising Him with His mouth.
So, let me encourage you to take these truths to heart. We will continue this discussion in our next episode. God bless you. Thank you so much for visiting with us today. In our next episode, we will continue discussing the importance of giving thanks to God, and that is important.
So bring a friend to listen with you. If this message has blessed you, tell your friends and please consider helping us stay on the air by sending your tax-deductible donation to Greg Hennett Ministries. Also, remember, you may download the Until He Comes podcast from your preferred podcast app. May you walk closely with Christ and trust and obey Him in your daily tests of faith and patience until He Comes. This is the Truth Network.
Mm-hmm.
